The Future of Punishment

Edited by Thomas A. Nadelhoffer

Description

Scholars are struggling to come to grips with the picture of human agency being pieced together by researchers in the biosciences. This volume aims at providing philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and legal theorists with an opportunity to examine the cluster of related issues that will need to be addressed in light of these developments. Each of the twelve essays collected here sheds light on an issue essential to the future of punishment and retribution. In addition to exploring the sorts of issues traditionally discussed when it comes to free will and punishment, the volume also contains several chapters on the relevance (or lack thereof) of advances in the biosciences to our conceptions of agency and responsibility.

While some contributors defend the philosophical status quo, others advocate no less than a total revaluation of our fundamental beliefs about moral and legal responsibility. This volume exposes the reader to cutting-edge research on the thorny relationship between traditional theories of agency and responsibility and recent and future scientific advances pertaining to these topics. It also provides an introduction to some of the long-standing debates in action theory and the philosophy of law, which concern the justification of punishment more generally.

The Future of Punishment

Edited by Thomas A. Nadelhoffer

Author Information

Thomas A. Nadelhoffer (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the College of Charleston. He specializes in the philosophy of mind and action, moral psychology, and the philosophy of law-which were the focus of his research during his time as a post-doctoral fellow with the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. He also recently co-edited Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings (Wiley-Blackwell 2010) with Eddy Nahmias and Shaun Nichols.

Contributors:

Eyal Aharoni (Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral researcher with appointments in the Psychology Department at the University of New Mexico and The Mind Research Network for Neurodiagnostic Discovery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Michael Louis Corrado (J.D., Ph.D.) is the Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Farah Focquaert (Ph.D.) is a Research Fellow at the Bioethics Institute Ghent, Ghent University.

Alan J. Fridlund (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara.

John Martin Fischer (Ph.D.) is Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, where he has held a University of California President's Chair (2006-10).

Andrea Glenn (Ph.D.) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore.

Geoffrey Goodwin (Ph.D.) is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dena Gromet (Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral fellow with The Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Neil Levy (Ph.D.) is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, based at the Florey Neuroscience Institutes, Melbourne, Australia.

Alfred R. Mele (Ph.D.) is the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University and director of the Big Questions in Free Will Project (2010-13).

Stephen J. Morse (J.D., Ph.D.) is Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law, Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry, and Associate Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nancey Murphy (Ph.D.) is professor of philosophy at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA.

Thomas A. Nadelhoffer (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the College of Charleston.

Eddy Nahmias (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University.

Shaun Nichols (Ph.D.) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, where he directs a research group on experimental philosophy.

Michael S. Pardo (J.D.) is the Henry Upson Sims Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law.

Dennis Patterson (J.D., Ph.D.) holds the Chair in Legal Theory and Legal Philosophy at the European University Institute.